Still the King, Baby
by Miss Whip
Summary: Ash, 30 years after he faced his first deadite. Ash/Sheila. Rated M for violence, language, hints of sexuality.


Still the King, Baby

By Drakelah

Commissioned to help_pakistan relief, for: Rise_Your_Dead

I would like to extend my personal thanks to Rise_Your_Dead for donating to help relief efforts in Pakistan!

Rating: Adult for language and violence

* * *

It had been a hard couple of years. Hard couple of thirty years to be exact.

All those times of soul-crushing behavior, the yelling, the screaming, the spitting, and the occasional biting could take their toll on a man; even one like him. Those were just the S-Mart customers.

Clipboard in hand, he stared out at the bright eyed faces looking back at him.

"Okay Trisha, you're on register today. Aaron, I need you in sporting goods, and Mike, you're in my old haunt, housewares, buddy. Keep an eye on automotive too."

Mike showed a complete and total lack of enthusiasm. He was the only one without bright eyes.

"Man, this job is totally soul-sucking." He mumbled, dragging his sneakers down the aisle.

"Hey! You don't know anything about soul-sucking kid! You wanna see soul-sucking?" Ash was acutely aware of what he'd just said, and tapped his clipboard against his metal hand, "Damn kids."

The boy didn't even look at him as he called after him.

When his metal hand closed involuntarily, it squeaked and he rolled his eyes.

"Oil can, oil can." Murmured one of the employees still hanging out near him. David was his name, the home taught kid of a retired GM mechanic who got paid too much for inflating tires when he wasn't away from his post in the car repair section.

With an ever famous jaw clench, he stared at the insolent one.

"It's, it's from the Wizard of Oz? You know? Tin man, oil can? Your hand kinda reminds me of the Tin man." The laughter was short and scared.

He found an iron finger pointed square in his face, "Look kid. I've seen the worst things imaginable, shit you would never even believe. A demon moose. That's how I got this bad hand here. So I'll thank you to never mention that movie with the creepy flying monkeys again. Gonna give me nightmares."

"Yes sir."

"Good, now take your ass back to automotive."

Ash missed the non-stupid employees like himself and Linda. His eyes longingly gazed at her old register. The ding of the drawer, the clash of the pennies against the plastic divider as the door slammed shut.

Poor Linda. At least Sheila had been saved and was probably still alive in her own time. He chuckled and then sighed. Thirty years on, she probably had grandkids to sit on her knee. Something in him was a bit sad that he wasn't there with her.

He was still the king, but the king needs a queen. Especially one with long chocolate colored locks of hair that fell delicately around her shoulders even during a temporary deadite phase. Okay, so, she hadn't been at her best then, but he found it easy to overlook that particular stage in their relationship.

The former housewares employee turned store manager walked back to his office for a can of WD-40. He popped the top and applied the grease to his squeaking limb.

There was a soft knock on his door, "Mr. Williams?"

He recognized the voice instantly, and it pissed him off immediately.

Trisha opened the door, "Hey, Mr. Williams?"

"Did I say you could come in?"

"No, but I totally think it's okay right now, something weird is going on."

"Something weird?" He sighed, "Is one of the customers possessed?"

"No, Mike told me to tell you that it looked like some kind of portal or vortex has opened up in automotive and that he'd come up and tell you himself, but he thought he should keep an eye on it since it looked like strange stuff might happen."

There it was, again.

That valley-girl accent lacking any form of emotion where all the words came out in one breath while the speaker looked around his office as if he'd suddenly become attached to the ceiling. He hated her accent almost as much as he hated deadites.

He grabbed the twelve-gauge from its rack next to his desk, a special privilege granted to him by upper management. After you dust a couple of scumbag demons on the job, their policy on guns in the workplace gets a little lax. Especially when he grabbed the boss by the collar after beating a demon to death with a frying pan, and growled into his face, "You may not give me dental, and the healthcare plan sucks, but you will not take away my goddamn gun!"

It was loaded; he cocked it and stared at the West Coast to Michigan transplant popping her gum in his doorway.

"Get all the customers out of the store."

"You want me to like, make an announcement on the intercom? 'Cause I'm not allowed to do that."

"I don't care, just do it."

"Fine."

Heavy boots tromped down the store aisles toward the automotive supply section. The rifle was gripped in his hands and yet cradled with all the delicacy that such a superior weapon deserved.

Paper and lighter goods swirled around in the aisles, and he strode through it without a second thought. A packet of straws broke near him and the multi-colored sticks flew up, cutting off his vision for a minute.

The shriek was undeniable. A demon had taken over one of the customers, and the woman was screaming her rage.

"Hey bitch! You ever seen one of these?"

"I'll kill you!"

"Choke on this!" He blasted the rifle once, twice, and swung the rife around, cocking it back.

The Kandarian demon fell backwards, twitched and flipped like a farm animal being slaughtered. She lay still for a moment and he took a step away, holding the gun on her, waiting.

Mike looked over at Trisha, who had neglected the job she'd been given. She looked a little, nervous, but confused, "So, does this like happen a lot?"

"Not for a few years now. The guys on night shift told me that thirty years ago, it happened like every week, but not lately."

Ash had been listening in, "Yeah, I was hoping I'd get to retire soon."

"So, what do we do about that?"

Ash looked up at the swirling blue and white vortex that seemed to be hovering next to the car batteries. It was blowing stuff around, sure, but it wasn't sucking the way these things usually did.

"I don't know."

He approached it with caution, but allowed the gun to be lowered.

"Uh, Mr. Williams?"

"Trisha, could you do me a favor and not talk?"

"This is kinda important."

"What?" He whipped around. The reanimated body of the woman was standing again, holding his back to the portal. Those milky white eyes stared at him, a cruel sneer on twisted lips over broken teeth.

"Were you this ugly before you became a demon?"

"I'll swallow your soul!" She grabbed onto the end of his rifle, holding it up in the air.

This was new, Ash put up his foot into her stomach, trying like hell to push her off his gun, but she clung to it with gnarled fingers.

"Don't fight us Ashley!"

"Ashley?"

Ash pulled to the right, putting the demon to the vortex and looked back over his shoulder, "Trisha, shut up!"

He'd always said that a man didn't have to be the strongest guy if he had the best weapon, but his strength to get the gun back just wasn't what it used to be.

"We'll get you Ash! The Necronomicon won't be denied!"

"I denied it! Denied it three damn times!"

"The dead are angry!"

"I'm pissed off too, get over it!" With a final shove of his boot, he kicked her backwards. She fell away, hissing and spitting, gnashing her teeth at him.

Her howl echoed in the store, and she raised her arms to attack. Ash brought up the gun, "See you in hell!"

She looked to make a response, but retched and stopped. Blood spilled from her mouth and splattered on his newly washed vest, "Goddamn it." He muttered.

The blade of something pierced through the demon's chest, covered in bright red. It twisted and ripped backward. With a disgusting death rattle, the deadite fell forward, finally dead. For now, maybe.

As he peered through the sight on the rifle, it shook in his hands. Slowly, he lowered it again, careful not to drop it.

Trisha, Mike, and the other S-Mart employees looked at the person with severe confusion.

"It is nice to see you again."

"Sheila?" His mouth gaped.

There she was in all her glory. Another thirty years older, like him and she still was unbelievably beautiful. That hair, a little longer, maybe with a few dignified touches of gray fell around her face and down the curve of her back. She still had those determined eyes, paired with newly fashioned armor adorning a slim body. With a fierce sword in her right hand and the book of the dead in her left, she was an imposing figure in the super store.

"Yes, Ash." A soft smile, "I trust you did not forget me?"

"How could I?"

"You said what we shared was 'pillow talk,' and I did not know if you meant that you would forget me when you went home."

"No, I – " He paused, and looked at her.

"I see that you still depend on your 'boomstick,' did you call it?"

"A man ain't nothing without his boomstick, baby."

"Quite." She walked up to him and he leaned in to kiss her.

Behind them, Trisha sniggered and he held up his free hand to silence her.

"You look different."

Sheila sighed, "Since you left, the attacks didn't stop. The deadite armies are numerous and they plague us."

"I killed them!"

"Perhaps you did not kill them enough. The prophets have foreseen that the demons will not be satisfied until they have taken your soul."

"They ain't getting my soul."

"I know that, you are a man possessed." She grinned, "In many ways."

"That's me." There was that trademark smirk of his. She'd fallen for him decades ago, and he was under her skin more than any Kandarian demon ever could be.

"Do you remember how we asked you to be king?"

"I certainly haven't forgot that."

"We need your help again. Our leaders are dead, the demons threaten our city, and I am the only one who defends this accursed book."

He looked at it, wary to touch even with his metal hand.

"Will you come back?"

Ash looked around the S-Mart store. The surly teenage employees, the dumb customers standing with "As seen on tv" products in their carts, and now the mess in all aisles that currently had to be cleaned.

Not to mention the dead body on the floor, yet another police report to be filed.

Was any of this what he'd wanted out of life? Hell no. Sure, it was miserable being the chosen one that could kill all the demons, a little annoying, killed your friends and screwed up your weekends.

The clipboard or the sword? That god awful kids or the sexy woman in the body armor. He was red-blooded male after all. Screw all of this, he was going back to where the action was!

"Alright doll. I'll come back and help you defeat the demons."

"You will be our king then?"

"I'm already a king, but maybe you can persuade me to take that job later."

In the background, Mike rolled his eyes when he saw the blush on Sheila's cheeks.

"Gladly." She looked up at him through half-lidded eyes, "Let's go."

"Wait a minute, Mike!"

"Yeah, Mr. Williams?"

"Get me a case of shells for the Remington, as many as we have."

Mike actually did what he was told for once.

"Baby, before we go, there's something I've wanted to do for a long time."

"What?"

He pulled Sheila into his arms, "Give me some sugar."

Ash dipped her back into a passionate kiss. She tangled her fingers in his mussed hair. They were both a little older, a little wiser, but they were no less alive.

The other employees in the area gazed down at their feet and tried to look invisible.

Mike returned with the shells in a bag and tossed it to his boss. Releasing Sheila, Ash stripped off his vest and tossed it back to the young man.

"Kid, I'm leaving you in charge of housewares, don't screw it up." He offered his arm to Sheila and she took it. Together, they walked through the vortex, and it closed behind them.

Mike looked at the vest in his hands and he noticed the name tag had something written on the back of it.

Trisha walked to him, stepping over the body of the dead woman, "What's up with that?"

"Mr. Williams wrote something on it."

"Well, like, what's it say?"

"Stay groovy."


End file.
